


Never Fell Far From the Tree

by onward_came_the_meteors



Series: Secrets of the Rainforest [2]
Category: Wings of Fire - Tui T. Sutherland
Genre: Animus magic, Bickering, Cryptic Moon, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Mild Angst (?), One Shot, POV Third Person, POV Turtle, Peril is Left Out and it is Very Sad, Qibli Gets on Winter's Nerves But What Else is New, Rainforest, Ratings: G, Sequel, Takes place a couple hours after the first fic, Turtle Isn't Quite Sure What He's Doing, Worst fears, kinkajou is a good friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:00:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22598974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onward_came_the_meteors/pseuds/onward_came_the_meteors
Summary: After the Jade Winglet returns to the academy from their... interesting field trip, some of them seem to be acting odd, and Turtle decides to investigate.Well, Peril decides to investigate, and Turtle helps because he's a good friend. Right?---------------In which an extra member of the Jade Winglet returns to the rainforest.This is a sequel to Going Back to Your Roots, and it's probably a good idea to read that one first to understand this one.
Series: Secrets of the Rainforest [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1747900
Comments: 2
Kudos: 42





	Never Fell Far From the Tree

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Valentine's Day!

“--and, yeah,” Turtle finished. “They pretty much came back and Tsunami started yelling at them. You know how it is.”

Peril was staring at him wide-eyed. Smoke hissed from her firescales and floated up to the rock ceiling of the hallway. Not that this hallway was special for being made of rock. It was kind of expected when one was in a mountain, as Turtle and Peril were at the present time. Jade Mountain, specifically.

In fact, Turtle had just gotten back to Jade Mountain after a field trip to the rainforest, during which most of the class had been bored silly by Starflight’s “observe this leaf. Now observe this other leaf. Notice how the vein patterns of this leaf are just slightly different from this one, which clearly indicates a biological diversity that ensures a proper evolutionary base…” lectures, while the lucky ones (Moon, Kinkajou, Qibli, and Winter, of course--wasn’t it always them?) got to discover a magical animus-powered memory tree that apparently no one had ever found before.

Seriously, wasn’t it always Moon, Kinkajou, Qibli, and Winter?

But Turtle wasn’t jealous. Based on Kinkajou’s regaling of the whole story, the tree had revealed some pretty personal things about all of the others, which might have a teeny tiny bit to do with why the four of them had been not-so-subtly avoiding each other for the past few hours since they’d gotten back. And Turtle was in no hurry to broadcast his own memories for display.

Even if his were waaaaaay more boring than those of a mind reader, IceWing prince, Outclaw, or dragon who’d helped in the SandWing war. 

He’d kind of wanted to go round up the other four and make them sit down and talk it out with each other (instead of what happened, which was all of them fleeing in four separate directions), but he’d decided that a good friend wouldn’t pry into their business. Also some of them were scary when they were mad and he didn’t want to make them mad at him. 

So obviously the better-friend thing to do was to tell Peril about everything… okay, even if it really wasn’t, it was making Peril feel better because he was including her! See, he could have friends. He was quite good at it, if you considered all these things. 

“Um,” Turtle said, because Peril was still staring at him, and frankly this made him nervous (and pat the top of his head to make sure he wasn’t on fire). “That’s it. I’m done talking now.”

Peril shook her head. “Wow. Okay, I should probably have guessed that you were done because HOW? Can a field trip get any crazier than that? Moon and Qibli and everyone found a MAGICAL ANIMUS TREE in the rainforest? How does that even happen?”

Turtle shrugged, but Peril was still going. 

“I mean, how do they know for sure it’s an animus tree? I guess there’s nothing else it could really be, right, cause trees like this don’t just GROW or anything. There’s probably more clues around the tree that they could’ve found if they didn’t leave right away--seriously, why would you find something so cool and then leave it? And why in the entire flaming suns didn’t you go with them, Turtle?” She swished her tail, full of energy, and although Turtle knew she was just excited, he scooted a little farther back on the stone floor just in case she got a little too excited. 

“I did not know, at the time, that they were going to find a magical animus tree,” he protested. “I thought they were just sneaking away to… well, never mind.” 

Peril narrowed her eyes at him and Turtle gave a mental sigh. Yeah, that had sounded suspicious, but it was less embarrassing than the truth: he hadn’t noticed Moon, Kinkajou, Winter, and Qibli sneaking away until after they were already gone, and by that time it was too late to do anything except worry the mud off his talons and hope they came back soon. 

“The day you stop being a dripping puddle is the day great things will happen, Turtle,” she said very seriously.

“Like pigs flying?”

“NO. Like you actually EXPERIENCING things for once. Like BASIC DRAGON CURIOSITY. The kind that makes you think “hmm, maybe I should follow them,” when your friends sneak off to mysterious rainforest places!”

“Well, I’m sorry.” Turtle waited a beat, and then asked, “So what do you think we should do now?” 

He was totally not dumping the problem of how to get Moon, Kinkajou, Qibli, and Winter out of their respective hiding places and force them to talk about--whatever it was they had to talk about--and stop avoiding each other on Peril, but… he was kind of absolutely dumping this problem on Peril. Turtle had never thought he was the best at situations like this, especially when he also thought hiding was an excellent way to avoid your problems. 

Peril, though, was the type to fly up and burn her problems with fiery rage, and while that might not be quite the best tactic for dealing with their friends, maybe a combination of their two brains would work.

“Isn’t that obvious, Turtle?” Peril asked, a grin forming on her face. Turtle suddenly got a bad feeling--and he didn’t think it was from those oddly purple rainforest fruits earlier. “We’ve got to go back to the rainforest and check it out!”

“Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.” Turtle paused and held out his talons. “...wait.”

“Waiting.”

“What are you talking about? How does that solve the problem?”

“What problem are you talking about?”

“...Kinkajou and Moon and Qibli and Winter are hiding and won’t speak to each other…?”

“Oh, that.” Peril waved a talon. Turtle watched with interest at the curl of smoke that wavered from it and towards the ceiling. “Not important. They’ll work it out.”

“How can you say it’s not impor--”

“The REAL problem,” Peril interrupted. “Is that there is currently an UNDISCOVERED and UNMONITORED MAGICAL ANIMUS TREE in the rainforest and we need to figure out… stuff! Like where it came from, who enchanted it, what it IS, because--sorry--you weren’t being too specific, and what we should do with it!”

“Technically, don’t you think Queen Glory should be the one to decide that?” Turtle pointed out.

“Well, she’s never gonna KNOW about it if no one tells her!” For a flaming death dragon, Peril could be annoyingly… right, sometimes. 

Because, yes, she was right. However, there was one glaring problem with her plan…

“You can’t go to the rainforest, though,” Turtle said. Surprisingly, this didn’t deflate Peril’s excitement one bit.

“But you can!”

“Wait--”

“Yeah! That’s the perfect plan!”

“Peril--”

“You were just there, Kinkajou told you how to find the tree, all you have to do is--”

“Peril--”

“--go to the same spot you were at with the field trip and find those blue sparkles or whatever it was--”

“Peril, wait--”

“--and it’ll lead you to the tree! Then after you figure out what it is, you can go to Glory and explain it, and then she’ll either get some dragons to study it or make a sign for it or something, and then we can be the famous dragons who discovered a magic animus tree!”

“Peril!” Turtle finally managed to say. She looked at him expectantly, but he was so overwhelmed by finally getting a word in edgewise that it took a moment for him to find words again. “Wait: we?”

“Well, obviously I get some credit for this being my idea,” Peril said matter-of-factly.

Turtle shook his head. He’d thought of a million arguments for why he couldn’t go to the rainforest (why he didn’t want to go to the rainforest...), why this was a bad idea and they would get in trouble, and why they should just focus on the academy and their friends… but all those arguments flew out of his head as soon as Peril met his eyes with that hopeful gaze. 

He didn’t want to let down his friend. And maybe that want was just slightly stronger than his want to stay in this mountain and hide his head under a pillow. 

Slightly.

But it was enough.

“I guess I’m going to the rainforest, then,” Turtle sighed. Peril giggled and rolled her eyes.

“Well, you don’t have to sound all doom and gloom about it. Come on!”

Reluctantly, Turtle followed her through the hallways and to the entrance to Jade Mountain Academy. Only now, he guessed, it was technically an exit. 

\-----------------------------

It wasn’t like Turtle hadn’t been to the rainforest before. He’d just been here a few hours ago on the field trip.

And it wasn’t like he had a particular dislike for the rainforest, unlike some dragons (whose name rhymed with splinter).

And it definitely wasn’t like he was afraid of the rainforest. No way. For every creepy snake or weird bug the rainforest had, the ocean probably had twenty sharks or giant crabs or googly-eyed squids. Not to mention the electric eels--which Turtle had known existed, but didn’t know they were part of his mother’s prison security, as in: in a very very very close range to him. 

So given all these facts, it probably wouldn’t make too much sense as to why Turtle kept stopping every five seconds on his path through the trees (or around trees, or under trees, or through bushes or while being tangled in vines, or… well, he didn’t need to describe further) and looking around himself like he was about to be pounced upon by a jaguar or a python or a--or an orangutan, even if he wasn’t quite sure what that last one was. 

The reason was quite simple, however. Turtle was hearing suspicious noises. Rustles and creaks and cracks and… well, noises that could only be described as talonsteps. Noises that stopped as soon as Turtle stopped, but continued as soon as he’d decided it must have been his imagination.

For the fifth time, Turtle stopped moving, perching himself on a decaying log and staying perfectly still. His green scales weren’t quite the same shade of green as the leaves and vines and plants all around him (Kinkajou had joked earlier that he clashed) but it was close enough that if he didn’t move, the untrained eye might take him for part of the environment. And Turtle was quite good at not moving.

He waited and waited, watching placidly as a carpenter ant crawled up and around his talon. The rainforest seemed completely peaceful--the gentle buzzing of insects, the bubble of a distant waterfall, the cries of brightly plumed birds overhead--but Turtle was keeping his ears alert. This time, he was not moving again until the source of the noises revealed itself. Or until his tail fell asleep. 

Luckily for his tail, though, only a few minutes passed before there was a scraping noise, a pitched yell, and a crashing sound behind him as something very large fell out of a tree and into a collection of shrubs. 

“Hi, Qibli,” Turtle said without turning around. “Why are you following me?” Oh, that was good. That was just like a line that the cool and confident protagonist in a scroll would say, and he’d pulled it off perfectly. 

“Hey, Turtle.” Darn it. Qibli was even better at sounding like a protagonist than he was. Turtle turned around to see the SandWing picking himself out of the mess of undergrowth (a fun word Turtle had learned from Kinkajou and Tamarin that apparently meant many many many--no, even more than that--bugs and pointy sticks and weird scratchy leaves that for some reason the ground had decided to grow. Seriously, who put the ground in charge of this whole “plants” thing?).

Anyway, Qibli had picked himself out of the undergrowth and was now moving on to picking the undergrowth out of him. Fortunately, he clearly decided about five seconds in that this was an entirely worthless way to spend the time, and instead looked up at Turtle. 

“So,” he said casually. “What brings you here?”

“You’re asking me this?” Turtle said. He intended to gracefully descend from his spot on the log, but instead kind of half fell off it into the mud. He wasn’t hurt, but he lost his train of thought a little. “Um, I should be asking you the same question?” Wait, he’d already kind of said that. Moons. 

Thankfully, Qibli was willing to overlook. “Okay, I fully admit that I was following you. There’s literally no other explanation for what I could be doing, so let’s just go with the truth ‘cause I don’t like lying to my friends.”

“O...okay?” Turtle paused. Qibli… did not seem like he was going to elaborate further? Why did he have to be like this? Making Turtle do all the work… “Er… wh--”

And then Turtle was interrupted by a yelp from behind a nearby clump of thick-trunked trees. Qibli’s eyes momentarily widened, but then he assumed an expression that looked a little too innocent for Turtle’s liking. 

“Ah, Qibli?”

“Yeah, Turtle?”

“What was that suspicious yelp?”

“What suspicious yelp--?” Qibli started, just as another one sounded from the same spot. Turtle raised his eyebrows at him. “Oh. Oh, that suspicious yelp. Yes, I see what you mean now. Thanks for pointing that out, Turtle.”

This SandWing was better at being annoying than any other dragon Turtle had ever met--including his sisters and brothers, and Kinkajou in the morning--and at any other time he would have thought it was mildly impressive that Qibli was so good at that, but now, well… did he mention the part about it being annoying?

“So what was the yelp, then?” Turtle asked. 

A few beats passed in which Qibli tried to look at the trees and not look like he was looking at the trees at the same time. “Howler monkeys?” he offered.

Before Turtle could even open his mouth, an IceWing shot out from behind the trees like they were on fire. 

“Why in the cursed fiery moons are there so many insects in this forest?” Winter growled, swiping at his own scales. Ignoring Qibli’s leveling gaze, he went on. “I knew about centipedes, all right, I accepted their existence. But why would anybody need longer centipedes? Aren’t regular centipedes enough?”

“Millipedes, Winter. They’re called millipedes.”

“Still!” Winter didn’t look remotely embarrassed at being forced out of his hiding spot by creatures smaller than his ear. Then again, maybe that explained it. “I don’t understand who would need more centipede. This proves that this rainforest is a pit of horror.” He plunked down on the ground with finality, then jumped right back up to his feet again as he remembered the mud and the bugs. 

Turtle looked between the two of them. “Okay, are there any more of you? Can we get that out of the way first?”

“Only one Qibli in Pyrrhia, I’m sad to report,” Qibli grinned. Beside him, Winter shuddered at the thought of more Qiblis. 

“Fine. So why were you guys following me? I’m not exactly the most interesting dragon to follow.”

“On the contrary,” Winter said. Qibli shot him a look.

“Who says ‘on the contrary?’ I admit it sounds cool, but you also sound like you’re reading from one of Webs’s old history scrolls.”

“Qibli, is it even possible for you to stop talking for five minutes--”

“Okay, okay. You’re right, I am a very bad dragon who will shut up now.” Qibli folded his talons and curled up his tail, the model of obedience. He widened his eyes at Winter, who was giving him a suspicious look. “What? You’re breaking the concentration I need to shut up.”

Winter heaved a sigh, turning toward Turtle as if to say “Can you believe him?” before remembering that it was Turtle sitting there and not another haughty IceWing. So he continued his explanation instead (if Turtle could call it continuing when it had barely gotten off the ground).

“If we’re being honest, we weren’t really trying to follow you,” Winter admitted. Turtle gestured with his talon for him to go on, he’d figured that already. “We saw Peril by the entrance hall, and she was looking very excited about something, and typically when Peril gets excited about something--”

“--stuff gets set on fire,” Turtle and Winter chimed in in unison. Qibli probably also would have chimed in, but he was being unexpectedly dedicated to his promise to shut up.

“Right.” Winter nodded. “And we were especially worried when she mentioned the rainforest--as much as I loathe this insect-filled abyss, I recognize that it would all go up like kindling if she came within twenty feet of it--so I thought it would be the best idea to keep an eye on her.”

“That was my idea,” Qibli protested, then gasped and covered his mouth with his talons as Winter glared at him. Turtle suspected that that was less to stop himself from talking than to stop Winter from seeing him grinning. 

“Either way,” Winter said sharply. “We planned to follow her, but then it turned out she was staying at Jade Mountain and you were going to the rainforest--honestly, did not expect that, no offense--so why waste a good spying plan?”

“I think I’d call it stalking,” Turtle said after thinking for a bit. “And it’s actually really creepy.”

“Well, even if you’re not Peril, you’re not allowed to leave Jade Mountain,” Winter said in that I’m-unquestionably-right-because-I-am-an-IceWing-foolish-mortals voice that Qibli liked to mimic whenever he wasn’t around (and sometimes when he was). 

“Neither are you,” Turtle pointed out. 

Winter shifted awkwardly. “What were you and Peril planning?” he asked, a somewhat clumsy change in topic. Turtle felt a little bit of triumph in getting the upper talon, a rare, rare, occurence indeed. 

Hmm… should he tell Qibli and Winter what they were planning? They were the ones who’d found the tree last time, after all--they might be able to find it again, and Turtle wasn’t a big fan of tramping through the whole rainforest until he spotted blue sparkles. Peril might not be too happy with him, though… but neither would Winter and Qibli if he didn’t tell them… 

“I’m trying to find that tree Kinkajou was talking about earlier,” Turtle admitted. He couldn’t imagine Peril would be all that mad at him, right? And he’d never been a particularly good secret-keeper (besides when it came to his animus powers, but that was just because it was REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT like YOU HAD NO IDEA) because he tended to forget that secrets were secrets, or forget who already knew a secret and who didn’t, or sometimes forget about the secret entirely and mess something up. 

Actually, that was a thought… maybe he could use his animus powers to find the tree. He held that thought in his mind as Qibli and Winter’s faces turned into twin masks of shock.

“Turtle… I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Qibli said. Winter nodded, apparently struck speechless by the sheer not-good of this idea. 

“Why?” Turtle asked. “Kinkajou was telling me about it--she said it was really cool and could answer so many questions, and it was this big mystery that some dragons would need to solve--and why can’t we be those dragons?” Wow, if there was a prize for Turtle Not Acting Like Turtle, he would have won it so many times that day. Actually going out and volunteering for the Cool Exciting Thing? So not compliant with his usual… compliance that it was laughable.

Then again, that’s what he’d thought when he signed up to go to Jade Mountain. And really, if you thought about it, that was the start of all of this craziness. So maybe he could blame New Irrational Turtle on whatever he had been thinking on that day one of his brothers (Fin, he was pretty sure it had been Fin. But it could also have been Mollusk or Sandbar. He hadn’t paid too much attention to who had given the news rather than the news itself) had swam into their bedroom like sharks were biting his tail and announced that their mother wanted to send a select few students to the new all-Pyrrhia academy that the dragonets of destiny were setting up, and Turtle. Had. Actually. Signed. Up.

And now look where he was. Sitting in a pile of mud in the rainforest, trying to convince an amateur spy of a SandWing and an overly fastidious IceWing that they should be searching for a tree with supposed magical powers instead of going back to school because Queen Scarlet’s former champion had told him to and he didn’t like disappointing dragons. 

Well, no turning back now, he thought. He looked back up at Winter and Qibli. “Don’t you guys want to solve the mystery too? Peril said something about being famous discoverers, but you probably already figured I don’t care about that--but you might? Or at least, aren’t you curious?”

Qibli was shaking his head, words tripping out of his mouth and then wavering as they changed their minds about wanting to be spoken. “Listen--Turtle--it’s just not--no--”

Winter snapped out of his being struck speechless (which was a bit of a relief in a way because Turtle was getting worried: Winter, speechless?) and said, “You need to leave this alone, Turtle. It’s nothing to do with any of us and it’s animus magic.” He spat the last two words as if they represented war, death, sour blueberries, and everything else that was wrong with the world. “Everyone knows that’s not to be trusted.”

“Hang on, maybe not necessarily…” Qibli started, but sighed at the look Winter gave him and said, “Yeah, yeah, it’s very spooky and dangerous. Animus magic bad. But seriously--” he added at another glare from Winter “--this tree should just be left alone. I don’t think it’ll mean anything good for anyone if you tell everybody it exists.”

“What makes you two the experts on this tree, anyway?” Turtle asked, trying to shake off the prickly feeling in his scales that appeared whenever another dragon mentioned animus magic. No, none of his friends knew he was an animus--nobody knew he was an animus, unless you counted that one snail that had been oozing around on his floor when he practiced enchanting some slates. And he wasn’t exactly keen on the idea of telling them, either.

This does not make me a bad dragon, he said to himself firmly. It’s just that being an animus is my business and no one else needs to know about it.

Although that probably ruled out his plan of using magic to find the tree if Qibli and Winter were here watching him…

Anyway. “You guys didn’t even look at the tree for that long. You don’t know that much more about it than I do, I bet.”

Qibli exchanged a look with Winter. “Trust me, we know enough. As of right now, no one else knows it exists, and I really, really, really, think it’s best if it stays that way.”

A heavy, foggy, silence fell over their little patch of rainforest. Turtle couldn’t think of anything to say, and Winter at least seemed to think the case was closed--he was twitching toward the way out, anxious to leave the rainforest and return to school. Qibli, though… Qibli was still staring right into Turtle’s eyes, unmoving. Wide, almost pleading, eyes. 

Whatever had happened when the rest of his winglet found this tree… they really wanted it to stay a secret.

How could Turtle go against that, even if he didn’t know the whole story himself (and even if it could be potentially dangerous not to tell anyone else about this tree, and that Queen Glory should at least know it’s in her own rainforest, and wasn’t it just a good idea in general to investigate strange magical objects in case they someday explode or cause an intelligent uprising of apocalypse tree frogs)?

Maybe he should have listened to his first instinct instead of Peril--if it’s not affecting you in any way, leave it alone. That philosophy had served Turtle very well in his efforts not to be noticed.

Maybe they should leave.

Turtle took a squelching step in the mud back the way he’d come, and he heard twin audible sighs of relief from behind him. More squelchy noises--Qibli and Winter were going to follow him back. This would be an awkward trip… oh moons, what was he going to say to Peril when they got back? Maybe he’d let Qibli handle that one. Qibli was easily the most diplomatic of the three of them. 

But he had only gone a few steps back through the trees when something caught his eye. At first, he thought it was just another flower, or a flashy-winged dragonfly, or even one of those poison dart frogs he’d heard about, (they came in blue, didn’t they?) though thankfully never seen. 

But no… this wasn’t anything nature-made.

Turtle had to blink several times to make sure his eyes weren’t tricking him before he allowed himself to think it: there were blue sparkles floating a few inches off the ground right in front of him.

Yes… those blue sparkles. And they were--his heart skipped--forming a trail that led even deeper into the rainforest.

“Say, guys,” he said, the amount of casual in his tone surprising even him. “You don’t happen to be seeing this too, do you?”

“Oh.” Qibli’s voice had the same strange calmness to it, like they were bird-watching and Turtle had just pointed out a green-billed toucan or something. “You mean the trail of blue sparkles that almost definitely lead back to the tree? Yeah, I do in fact see that.”

Turtle slowly reached out a talon to poke one of the sparkles, but his claw whooshed through empty air, the sparkle wisping out and back into existence slightly to the left. “I think I’m going to follow them.”

“That’s not surprising. Or it wouldn’t be surprising if you were any other dragon, but you are you, so it’s a little surprising…” 

“I can’t go back and tell Peril I got this close but backed out.” It was odd. Somehow the appearance of the sparkles had changed his mind--at least enough to awaken that little voice in his head that kept pushing him to “go on, do this, this is the right thing to do.” What was that little voice called? It sure wasn’t his conscience.

“Too bad!” Winter stomped a talon down on the trail of sparkles (which of course didn’t do anything--the sparkles simply vanished and reappeared--but it scared Turtle into jumping back a bit, which was probably the intended effect). “We just decided that this was a bad idea--and you agreed, might I add!--so you can’t change your mind as soon as you see some pretty glitter!”

If Turtle was a bolder dragon, he might’ve said “Watch me.” He was actually pretty tempted to--it was definitely something the main character in a scroll would have done. Or something Peril might have done.

Instead, he kind of mumbled something like “Mmleerg” at Winter and plunged into the undergrowth after the trail of sparkles, which obligingly glowed brighter for him, as though they wanted to be followed.

Winter’s indignant protesting faded briefly into the distance as Turtle headed farther and farther into the rainforest--the trail seemed to go on for a while, around trees, through fallen logs, over an anthill that was rather impressive in size but that Turtle still didn’t want to climb over--but then grew louder again as Winter came crashing after him, still trying to finish the same sentence that Turtle had cheerfully ignored when he wandered into the rainforest.

“--and that’s why this is a horrible idea. Turtle, you need to come back to Jade Mountain with us--you can’t possibly think this is going to accomplish anything worthwhile. Turtle. Turtle. TURTLE are you EVEN LISTENING to a WORD I am saying?”

“Hard not to when you’re waking up the whole rainforest,” came Qibli’s wry voice--apparently he had followed Winter following Turtle, which wasn’t surprising considering the SandWing’s aptness for finding interesting things to insert himself in. “Since I’m sure I’m not the only one who wouldn’t like to get attacked by a swarm of angry bats, how about we stop shouting?”

Winter glared at Qibli, but before he could say anything, Turtle spoke up: “Colony.”

Qibli cocked his head. “Huh?”

“It’s a colony of bats, not a swarm. In case you were interested,” he added, hoping he didn’t seem rude--he’d just been excited about remembering a rainforest fact from the academy. Fortunately, Qibli didn’t seem offended.

“Oh, neat. I wonder what a group of IceWings is called--maybe it’s the icicles-up-their--”

“And I’m sure a group of SandWings--” Winter started to shoot back, but then finally noticed Turtle, who had been trying to use this distraction to sneak away after the trail of blue sparkles. “Hey! We weren’t finished here!”

“Look.” Turtle sighed in exasperation and wheeled around, lifting his tail out of the way of a cluster of sparkles. “Whatever you say to try and get me to go back to Jade Mountain, it’s, uh, not going to work. I am, um, I am following this trail and I am finding this tree. Ah… so I guess you can either go back yourselves or follow me, but if you’re following me I think--I guess--er--you’ve got to stop arguing. I’ve made up my mind. Yep.” 

This speech had sounded rather impressive when Turtle composed it in his head--now that was an excellent character development moment for a protagonist, one he would have right before striding off to end the forces of evil and save the day!--but it sounded quite a bit different in Turtle’s voice. He kept mumbling or trailing off, or going a bit quiet during the more decisive parts. And moons, why did his voice have to keep tilting upward at the end of every sentence? He wasn’t asking permission! 

It was definitely a good thing he would never have any kind of role in his own kingdom. His mother may have made grand speeches like this every day, but he probably wouldn’t be able to order dinner without sounding like he was having second thoughts. 

Nevertheless… his speech had worked. Either that, or his friends were trapped in their own heads, too busy obsessing over every way this could possibly go wrong and how stupid Turtle was to say anything, because (as impossible as it may have seemed) Qibli and Winter were entirely silent for the rest of the journey.

\-------------------------------------

Turtle was so focused on following the sparkles that he almost missed it when they walked right into a clearing. He only looked up when Qibli nudged him in the shoulder. Then he froze. As much as one could freeze when walking through the most humid place in Pyrrhia.

They were in a clearing, all right. And so was the tree.

Yeah. That tree.

It was old, like super old, bent and twisted up with age, vines wrapping around the trunk like a grumpy old dragon hunching under his forelegs to keep out the chill. And the sparkles, of course: spilling out of the cracks and holes in the bark and filling the dusky air like fallen stars. Or maybe like snowflakes in a blizzard, if blizzards looked like what Turtle imagined they looked like (maybe it was like getting buried in sand. But… cold sand?)

All except for one part of the tree, right on the front, where someone had stuck a black glass mirror. Or at least that’s what Turtle thought until he looked closer and realized that the smooth part wasn’t glass, it was just part of the tree. A part where all the lumpy bark and tangling vines had seemingly been filed down and wiped away, revealing the dark core.

Turtle hovered in place, one talon off the ground. He felt like a piece of metal caught between two equally strong magnets--he couldn’t move in either direction. Should he go up to the tree (terrifying, just--absolutely terrifying) or turn around and flap-flap-flap his way back to Jade Mountain (yes, let’s do that, that sounds excellent, his subconscious begged)? The lazy blend-into-the-background current Turtle heartily supported the second option. 

But the Turtle who loved stories, who was in awe of magic and adventure, who wanted to be able to go back and tell his friends what he’d done--done, for once, not thought about doing--who wanted to be able to share this (pretty awesome, if you thought about it) discovery with the world?

Well, that Turtle had a valid point, but maybe he should just go back anyway.

Oh, no you don’t, he told himself firmly. I have bugs crawling through my scales for this, I am not giving up. 

Slowly, he lowered his talon to the ground--one step forward. He lifted another talon--two steps forward. There were now two more of his footprints in the mud behind him. Two more signs of proof that Turtle the SeaWing had been here, was making a decision, and was not doing the lazy, cowardly, hiding, thing that he usually did. He could hear Qibli and Winter whispering furiously, helplessly, to each other behind him, but they weren’t stopping him. They weren’t stopping him!

He was almost to the foot of the tree when--

“And OH NO YOU DON’T!”

What must have been a strange species of giant, neon-bright, tangerine-colored monkey dove out of the tree branches above him and landed with a sploosh that sprayed mud across his face. It took a few seconds for Turtle to wipe the mud away before he regained his sight enough to say, “Wait a second--Kinkajou?”

The RainWing lifted her head. “I could ask you the same question!”

“Huh?”

“Oh… I thought you were going to ask me what I was doing here.”

“Well, I guess--what are you doing here, Kinkajou?’

“I could ask you the same--wait, no. You’re being too calm. I thought you would scream or something. We’re not at a tea party--I just almost fell on your head! Aren’t you just a LITTLE surprised?”

Turtle shrugged. “I kind of saw it coming? As soon as these two showed up?” And, because he couldn’t resist, “That was Winter who screamed.”

“I BEG YOUR PARDON.” Winter sauntered up from the bushes and into the clearing, as much as one could saunter when going squish-squeesh-squish through the mud. “I did no such thing.”

Qibli grinned. “There’s nothing to be ashamed about, Winter.” He ignored the spluttering that came next, looking instead up into the trees. Turtle followed his gaze curiously, but he didn’t see anything else until--

SPLAT--another shape, this one completely black, tumbled out of the branches. Moon straightened up and offered an apologetic look to Turtle. “Sorry for following you, but we knew you’d find Qibli and Winter in two heartbeats.”

“Doesn’t anyone believe in us anymore?” Qibli asked, draping himself tragically over a rock.

Kinkajou frowned as if seriously pondering the question. Then a sparkle fluttered near her face and she seemed to remember why they were here.

“Turtle,” she started. “Honestly, I kind of think this tree is awesome too and I don’t understand why we can’t tell anyone about it? But all of these guys seem to have a problem with it, so…”

“It’s not a problem,” Moon interjected. “It’s just… Turtle, you haven’t seen what this tree does, it’s not always good. Trust the future-teller, maybe?”

“Oh, Moon, obviously I trust you, but--wait.” Turtle was feeling a strange sensation. Almost like… he had an actual motivation to do something. Odd. Maybe he was getting sick.

He stepped closer to the tree, where the curving roots seemed to invite him in. “Why don’t you let me test it out first? Then I’ll see what it was that made you guys so nervous.”

“I’M not nervous.” Kinkajou’s wings flared cherry, but Winter stepped in front of her.

“You know what, I actually approve this plan.”

“One that wasn’t made up by an IceWing? That’s a first,” Qibli muttered under his breath.

Winter’s cold blue eyes met Turtle’s, and he felt a sudden shiver like the northern winds had somehow descended upon them. “Why don’t you try out the tree? Then you’ll understand.”

“Uhhh… the way you said ‘understand’ made it sound like I’ll be experiencing pain? This tree doesn’t, um, grow spears and attack you, does it?” Maybe he should rethink this whole plan.

Kinkajou giggled. “No, you silly toucan. You just stand in front of it and look in the mirror.”

And Turtle did so. The thick, ropy, roots of the tree seemed to form a semicircle around him--almost like a stage. The vines that wrapped so tightly around the trunk appeared to be growing longer before his eyes. And the black mirror still beckoned, eerily smooth. As he looked into it, its dark eye seemed to be looking back at him.

And then it went white. In just a flash. As though it really had been an eye, and the pupil had vanished. Slowly, slowly, shapes began to form in the mirror out of the tendrils of color appearing here and there. Forming an image… a scene… a… a… 

Turtle’s mind went blank. Because there he was. Standing in the mud in front of the tree, of course, but also inside the mirror. Or on the mirror’s surface, or… whatever you wanted to call it. The image the mirror was showing… was of him.

“He doesn’t look younger, though,” Qibli said from behind him in a not-so-hushed whisper. Turtle didn’t want to tear his eyes away from the image, but he could picture the SandWing’s brows furrowed in confusion. “When we looked in the mirror, it showed us things from when we were dragonets. Er--younger dragonets.”

“Shh,” Moon poked him. 

Turtle barely registered their whispers, because he was very extremely focused on this creepy tree that apparently had nothing better to do than show an image of Turtle in his room in the Deep Palace, sitting at a desk (he couldn’t really call it his desk… actually, he couldn’t really call it his room. The desk and the room were both things that fell into the jumbling category of “Queen Coral’s Sons’ Stuff.” Like their jewelry, and their food, and their personalities). 

The Mirror-Turtle did look basically the same as real-Turtle, just fiddling with a loose piece of kelp and humming on and off to himself. The only slightly off thing was that he was somehow in the room by himself--no brothers. Then again, that did happen occasionally. Like when they were younger and played hide and seek, for instance, and Turtle ended up being the seeker. That hadn’t lasted long, though--all of his brothers got sick of having to hide so long while he “took forever” to find them--

Real-Turtle gasped. Mirror-Turtle wasn’t just fiddling with that loose piece of kelp--he was enchanting it. He could see his mouth moving, the slight twitch of his talons. Could any of the others tell what was happening?

Turtle glanced quickly over his shoulder, but none of his friends seemed to have picked up on it (yeah, not even Qibli or Moon, unbelievable). It was probably because he was standing right in front of it--and he recognized the behavior--that he’d noticed it at all.

He’d been wondering tangentially if the tree-image had sound, but he didn’t need to wonder any more as the door to Turtle’s bedroom burst open with a mighty bang, revealing… Queen Coral?

Mirror-Turtle jumped one hundred and eighty degrees, trying to hide the evidence of his enchantment behind his back, but it was too late. His mother had seen.

“What is this?” She was underwater, so her scales flashed the message in Aquatic. “You hid this from me? How dare you!”

Mirror-Turtle’s scales lit up haphazardly--he was stammering. “Mother--Your Majesty--I just--I’m sorry--”

“One of my sons is an animus and he didn’t tell me?” 

Real-Turtle was so, so, glad none of his friends understood Aquatic. 

Mirror-Turtle hung his head. His scales flashed one lone message. “I’m sorry.”

“Well.” Coral huffed. “You had better be. No one gets away with hiding something this important in MY kingdom. But we’ll deal with that later. For now, we’ll put you in training with Anemone. I have lots of plans for you--if you think you can keep from going insane.” She looked down her snout at him. “How often have you used your magic?” She didn’t bother to let him answer. “Of course, of course. This is precisely why you should have come to me! Now there’s the danger you might turn out like Albatross. Come along… son… we’ve got an important announcement to make to the whole kingdom.”

Real-Turtle jumped away from the image like it was burning his scales. The moment he was away from the tree, the image dissolved back into empty blackness. To his horror, he felt the sensation that not only his scales, but his eyes, were burning, and he frustratedly jammed his talons into them.

“Turtle?” Kinkajou’s voice. “Are you okay? What were you and the other dragon saying?”

Winter shot Kinkajou a condescending look. “That ‘other dragon’ was the SeaWing queen, which you would KNOW if you had any appreciation for--”

“Winter?” Qibli spoke up. “Shut up.” He stepped carefully closer to Turtle, then apparently thought better of it and pretended like he was trying to avoid the mud. Even though the spot he’d just stepped in was significantly muddier than the spot he’d just stepped out of, and besides, they all knew Qibli didn’t care about muddy scales one way or the other. That was part of the fascinating mystery on why the teachers had decided to make them clawmates (it couldn’t have been a random sorting method--this was too inconvenient for that).

“Turtle, this is going to sound weird.” Qibli stated it matter-of-factly. “But was that scene the tree just showed you a scene from your past, by any chance?”

Turtle shook his head. 

“Are you sure?”

“Trust me,” Turtle said thickly. “I’d remember if something like that had ever happened. Also, all of your kingdoms would probably be taken over as part of a SeaWing-dominated empire or something.”

“Um… okay. Thank the moons for that, I guess? But that still doesn’t explain why the tree showed you that image. For us, it showed us… er, memories, I guess.” Qibli looked around to the others as if to confirm. “I don’t know why this time is different.”

“Maybe the rest of us should test it,” Kinkajou suggested. “Make sure it’s not ONLY different for Turtle.” Her scales had deepened to purple, but with bars of yellowy-gold shot through. 

“Kinkajou--” Turtle wasn’t sure which of them spoke first--him or Moon or Qibli, although he was sure it wasn’t Winter--but it didn’t matter, because none of them managed to speak quite quick enough. Kinkajou had leaped in front of the tree before they could even get the warning out.

At first, it looked like the mirror wasn’t working, but that’s because it stayed black--and apparently most of the image was black. As Turtle watched, he saw ribbons of red-gold fire threading through the blackness… black rocks, he realized. And fire didn’t flow… this was lava.

Lava and black rocks… no, Turtle wasn’t stupid, but hadn’t the NightWing Kingdom been destroyed in a volcanic explosion? 

Yet there was no doubting the image before his eyes. Or rather, before Kinkajou’s eyes. This was her scene, after all… but not her memory, from the confused look on her face. But what could she have to be confused about here? There wasn’t anything but the hiss of sparks on stone, the slow oozing of the thick lava through its course.

Wait a second. Was that a tail?

Turtle squinted. It sure looked like a tail, but what kind of tail was that exact color of the rocks behind it that--ohhhh. RainWing camouflage. And if he followed that faint outline…

The RainWing was Kinkajou, pressed flat against the small bit of flat rock extending over the lava. Her eyes were closed, her breathing slow and laborious. Her scales were dry and cracked, and somehow Turtle didn’t think it was part of her camouflage. 

There was a faint whistling noise coming from her mouth, and it took Turtle a moment to realize that she was speaking, or trying to. The words were faint, gasped out amid the hoarseness of her breathing. It didn’t sound like Kinkajou’s voice at all.

“I’m… sorry… “ Mirror-Kinkajou rasped. “I didn’t… want… it to end… this way I made… a mistake… I’m sorry…” 

Who was she… Turtle followed Mirror-Kinkajou’s gaze and immediately wanted to throw up. Or scream. Or hide under a bush. One of the three was definitely about to happen and he was too frozen in shock to figure out which one it would be. 

Because in that chasm down below, the one thrumming with lava, with heat, with death…

There were bones down there. 

Dragon skeletons, all but completely licked clean by the hungry tongues of fire, horribly twisted and burned and poisoned by the air. The worst part--Turtle actually gagged at this--was that it was still possible to tell… (oh, moons no)... that the skeleton with the spikes was an IceWing, and the one with the ruff was a RainWing, and the one with a no-longer-poisonous barb on the end of its tail was a SandWing… 

Wait, no. No no no no no. 

There was a melting drip of amber slowly sliding down the vertebrae of the SandWing skeleton… dripping from the ear. Qibli’s earring.

And the IceWing was Winter, the little one over there must have been Sunny, and (that was why, that was why there were so many RainWings) all of the RainWings were Glory and Tamarin and who even knew who else, because this lava was full of skeletons and Turtle couldn’t even tell who most of them were. NightWings and SeaWings and MudWings… and depending on which parts were buried in the fiery horror, every other tribe… were all indistinguishable once the volcano got them.

All these skeletons in the lava were Kinkajou’s friends.

And Kinkajou was the only one left.

With a strangled noise that could either have been a gasp or a sob, Kinkajou stumbled away from the tree and into Moon’s wings. Black covered navy blue as the RainWing shuddered. 

“That was awful,” Kinkajou whispered. She lifted her head out of Moon’s shoulder, and Turtle was halfway shocked to see that her eyes were completely clear. That image had left deep scratches across Kinkajou’s mind, but the scratches hadn’t drawn blood. “Was that anything like what you saw, Turtle? Cause if it was, I just…” She shook her head. “That is NOT what it showed me last time.”

“What it showed you was probably worse,” Turtle said. He did mean it--what he saw was only upsetting for him, but what Kinkajou saw… well, you’d have to be Blister to hide your emotions. “And it definitely showed you something different before?”

“Yeah,” said Kinkajou. Her scales were softening from the navy worn like armor, lightening to a violet. “Earlier it showed us scenes from when we were dragonets--you know, younger dragonets than we are now. For me, it showed this one time I was playing hide and seek with Tamarin and Coconut.”

Turtle didn’t have to ask if the scene she’d just seen was a memory or not. He was pretty sure none of them had ever died painful, tragic, lava-involving, deaths, although that would explain some things about Winter’s mood. 

Qibli frowned. “I have a theory, but it could still just be a fluke of the mirror. You’re all going to hate this suggestion, but… we probably have to test it again.” He looked meaningfully at Winter, who backed up nearly into the prickly spines of a plant.

“Oh no,” Winter growled. “I am not getting dragged into this again. We already tested this infernal tree, and surprise--Turtle’s not the only one seeing weirder stuff than last time. It doesn’t say anything about him--even though if you ask me it would be a fair assumption--and we can all go on our merry way BACK to school WHERE WE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE IN THE FIRST PLACE.”

Moon rubbed her ear. “Careful, Winter, you’ll wake up all the hibernating bears.”

“Bears don’t hibernate in the rainforest.”

“You’re being so loud you’ll wake up the hibernating bears in the Ice Kingdom from here.”

“I just want to get back to school and forget about this tree. Why is that so hard for you dragons?” Winter asked.

“We’ve covered this,” Qibli said impatiently. “We have to have some understanding of how this thing works before we show it to anyone else--”

“--like Queen Glory,” Kinkajou piped up.

Qibli nodded. “--like Queen Glory, and we need to make sure it’s consistent--which so far is a wild no--and that it’s not dangerous.”

“By testing it on ourselves.”

“That is correct.”

Winter stared up at the tiny sliver of blue sky visible through the thick canopy. “Why this winglet?” he muttered, in a voice that was very carefully under his breath, but also very intentionally still audible to the rest of them. “I could have been put in any other winglet in the school. I could have had some normal clawmates.”

“Or you could have gotten Coconut,” Turtle pointed out. “Be grateful you got us.” 

He didn’t mean that as an insult to Coconut, of course--he liked the RainWing just as much as anyone (actually, he might not have ever spoken to Coconut), but everyone had been around for the unmentionable event that the students only ever referred to now as the “Papaya Incident.”

Winter nodded in a half concession, which apparently was all the confirmation Qibli needed to drag him over to the tree. It was quite impressive that Qibli managed to drag him, actually, considering that they were roughly the same size--if anything, Winter was bigger--and the IceWing was protesting the whole way like a dragonet who didn’t want to leave the bubble garden.

But the moment Winter was in front of the mirror, he fell silent. Maybe it was because of the image slowly coalescing in the mirror before him.

Turtle expected to be blinded by snow and ice, to see tundra and the sculpted icicle towers of the Ice Kingdom… wasn’t that obvious? Instead the image shaped itself into something his eyes did not expect: Winter’s room at Jade Mountain.

The IceWing himself (looking exactly the same age as Current Winter, by the way) was hunched on a rock ledge, brooding over a piece of scroll in his claws. Turtle was too far away from the tree to read all of it, but he caught a few of the most darkly written words, like “dare” or “disgrace” or “rankings” (whatever that meant), and the last sentence, which had been pressed so hard into the paper that Moon, Kinkajou, and Qibli could probably read it too: “don’t ever come back.”

Winter, though, both in reality and in the image, could read every word. And judging from the identical carefully frozen expressions on his faces, the rest wasn’t much better. Turtle wondered who the letter was from: one of his parents? The IceWing queen herself? Or some random scribe dragon? That would be the worst, he decided. To be that much of a disappointment to your family that they didn’t even bother inking their own claws in order to inform you.

The Winter in the image slowly blew out a stream of frostbreath that iced over the paper instantly. When he tapped it with a talon, it shattered like glass. But this only served to make him more miserable-looking. He crawled off of the ledge and slunk out of the room, traveling a familiar path through the school hallways.

Ah, I see, Turtle thought. He’s going to find his friends. Er, us. To make him feel better.

But why did he have such a sinking feeling about it?

In the image, Winter arrived at the doorway to Moon and Kinkajou’s room. His expression was hovering on the tipping point over a chasm of devastation. He peeked inside--

\--the image panned slowly to the left, giving a view of the inside of the room--

\--where Qibli and Moon were entangled in the center, easy for anyone to see.

Turtle thought his eyes had just blown in size like pufferfish, and Kinkajou let out a surprised noise that sounded more like “eeyih?” than anything else. Qibli and Moon twitched nervously away from each other, and Turtle had to move to avoid getting sliced by Qibli’s tail. 

Winter, though, could have been replaced by a statue, and the only way to tell the difference was in the odd glassy quality of his eyes. He deliberately took a step back from the mirror, features working hard to display the trademark haughty IceWing look. The image vanished like water thrown over paint. 

I’m guessing that wasn’t what you saw last time, either, Turtle wanted to say, but he was cowardly enough to keep his mouth closed for fear of it being ripped off his face. Winter seemed in a… touchy mood.

Qibli, apparently, didn’t feel the same way. “So I guess we’re three for three on who’s seeing something different in the mirror. Actually, two, because Turtle only looked in the mirror once--”

“If you’re trying to say something, SandWing--”

“Oh, no, nothing of the sort, me. Just trying to make a little scientific observation.” He casually folded his claws on top of each other, and a pointy rock.

“Well, scientific observations usually come after at least three experiments,” Winter growled. “So I think you should be the one to go next.”

“I’d rather not, actually,” Qibli said, sitting perfectly placidly even as Winter stalked toward him with all the fury of an impending blizzard. “Don’t think you can just yell at me and get what you want, I’ve done the opposite for years.”

Winter paused. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“No, you’re just being pushy and I refuse to interact.” Qibli was grinning the entire time he said this, making every other dragon in the clearing unsure if he was joking or just being Qibli. Which, admittedly, involved a lot of joking. One thing Turtle had learned about being his friend was that there were many times when it was better not to take Qibli seriously, just in case. Instead, he looked to Moon--the mind reader--for hints on how to respond.

Right now, she and Kinkajou were grinning too. Kinkajou leaned to whisper something into Moon’s ear--her scales flashing a brief icy blue as she did so, always a sure sign she was teasing Winter--and both of them shook with silent giggling. 

Winter did not seem amused by this. Surprisingly, he wasn’t reacting in a typical IceWing-royalty way, either (Or maybe it was just IceWing warriors. Or maybe… just IceWings). Instead, he spoke in a fairly level voice. “What do you suggest I do instead, Qibli?”

Turtle wondered how quickly he could hide behind a tree trunk if the two of them started fighting. He’d had a lot of practice dodging squabbling brothers, and sometimes Qibli and Winter could be even more volatile. 

“Oh, you know, polite conversation, reasoned discussions, that kind of thing.” Qibli was still looking like someone was telling him the best joke in the world--or maybe he was just the one who was telling it. “Seriously, how do the IceWings even survive in tribal negotiations if none of you know diplomacy?”

Winter huffed. “Of course we know diplomacy.”

“Well, I ain’t gonna say prove it… but…” 

Turtle was honestly feeling so bad for Qibli--he was clearly working hard to keep from bursting out laughing. Winter narrowed his eyes.

“Fine. I think you should try looking in the mirror next.”

“And why do you think that, Winter?” Qibli’s innocent voice was clashing with Winter’s barely concealed growl like his sister Anemone’s one peridot necklace (a diplomatic gift from Blister, he was pretty sure, which made the fact that Anemone still had it a little... questionable) against her scales. But that, too, had ended in an explosion.

“In the interest of scientific observation. And because I think it’s only fair.”

“Yes. But consider: I really don’t want to.”

“Counter-argument: do you really want to present this to Glory and the rest of the tribes if we aren’t one hundred percent certain what it does?”

“Counter-counter-argument: okay.”

“That’s… not a counter-argument if you’re agreeing with me.”

“Yeah, but consider: I really like saying ‘counter-counter-argument.’”

Winter did not blink for a solid ten seconds. Then he said, “If you’re really one of the dragons that the queen of the SandWings listens to, I fear for your kingdom.”

“You fear it might get TOO awesome? Yeah, me too. I’m glad we have this in common, Winter.” Qibli sploshed through the mud over to the tree. Whatever he’d said to the contrary, it was obvious he did not want to be doing this. Everyone else fell silent as he edged closer.

And closer.

And…

“Qibli, will you just get in front of it already?”

“This is part of the science! I’m trying to see how close I have to be!”

“Of all the--”

“Maybe the problem is that YOU’RE too close; you’re messing it up. Scoot.” Qibli made a shooing motion toward Winter, who pointedly took exactly one step backward. Qibli pointedly took exactly one step forward. And apparently that was all it needed.

The black surface of the mirror began to swirl with color once again, forming into distinct shapes that settled into a blazing gold setting. Finally, a location that was in character; Winter’s mirror-image had really messed them up by not being in the Ice Kingdom.

But the scene before Qibli was clearly the Kingdom of Sand. Even though Turtle had never been, it was obvious, what with the smoldering blue sky and piercing sun, the cacti dotting the dunes in the distance, and… uh… yeah, all the sand. 

Turtle tried to remember what he knew about where Qibli lived (other than: the sleeping cave down the hall, obviously). He was one of Queen Thorn’s inner circle… the Outclaws, right? And they lived in the part of the desert that, if he were a SandWing, his parents would probably have warned him to stay away from. That part. The Scorpion Den. 

If this was the Scorpion Den, though, it was the very, very, outskirts of it. There was only the faintest echo of trading and bartering and yelling and all-out fighting from the corners of the image. Only the faintest trails of smoke from roasting lizards and accidental--or not--fire-breathing. The chaos and admittable danger of the main markets and alleyways had been left behind, and this section in the very back was like a graveyard in comparison. Dusty sand settled over the worn-out stone steps of houses, which leaned and cracked from too long exposed to the desert wind. A literal tumbleweed rolled across one of the… yards? Could you call it a yard if there was no grass (or seaweed)? This was about as far as you could get from the coral latticework and pearl-inlaid towers of the Deep Palace. There, everything burst with color, with life, with the smooth flowing of water not allowing any sand to settle. Here, everything was brown, gold, brown, tan, brown.

Oh, except for that one splotch of black…

Turtle had been the last one to notice apparently, since the rest of his friends had already made their respective noises of surprise, and his gasp was a few beats behind. But just because he hadn’t seen it first didn’t mean he didn’t know what it was: a NightWing, tail sifting anxiously through the sand beside a SandWing, who was understandably harder to spot.

Not just any NightWing and SandWing, too… it was Moon and Qibli. The latter was obvious, since, hello, Qibli’s mirror-scene, but Moon’s presence did not make as much sense. What was she doing there?

Mirror-Moon was clearly having similar thoughts. “What are we doing here?”

A shimmer ran over the mirror’s surface, like it was trying to manipulate reality in order to show what it needed to show. Like it had to compensate slivers of actuality in order to make its own truth.

“We don’t need to stay for long,” Qibli said as he crept up to the dingy gate of one of the dilapidated houses. “I just need to get something.” He pushed on the gate, which gave easily, whining its rusty creak as a cut into the silent dunes. Fortunately, they were the only two dragons around to hear it… so far. 

Qibli and Moon crossed the yard, both of them being noticeably careful in how loud their footsteps were, how measured their breaths. Moon stood out like a piece of the night sky had been dropped on the desert, but Qibli blended in so well, it was clear he belonged just like any other part of the environment. 

Turtle narrowed his eyes. Wait a second, he thought. Is this where Qibli lives? Er, lived, before Jade Mountain?

It was a little embarrassing that it had taken him so long to come to that conclusion, but in his defense, he would never think of someone like Qibli living here. Qibli was fun and smart and friends with everyone from Queen Thorn to Winter (yeah… even Winter). It seemed impossible to think that that dragon could have come from this house-that-could-barely-be-called-a-house any more than… any more than magical trees could be discovered in the rainforest, but here they were.

In the mirror, Moon suddenly pressed her talons to her head. “Qibli, someone’s coming--their thoughts are like iron spikes, I don’t think we should--”

Qibli’s head jolted upward in alarm, but it was too late for either of them to do anything--another dragon was coming.

The door to the house shuddered open, revealing an older female SandWing. Her look of narrow-eyed suspicion quickly gave way to cold amusement as she spotted the two dragonets huddled on her yard. 

“Well,” she drawled. “Here I thought this was going to be another boring day, but look at this.” She paused. “Don’t you have anything to say, you little desert rat?”

Qibli shifted slightly so his wings were half-blocking Moon. His claws made tracing patterns in the sand. “Hello, Cobra.”

“Oh, it’s ‘Cobra,’ now, is it? That’s actually a relief; you’ve finally stopped calling me ‘Mother’ like a needy dragonet.” Cobra descended the stairs below the doorway like her namesake: ominous and ready to strike at any moment. “And you’ve brought me a NightWing, which, not my first choice, but an interesting one. I think everyone will have a lot of fun with the both of you.” 

She was nearly on top of them now, raising the poison barb on the end of her tail as a clear threat. Qibli raised his own, but he and Moon looked small and useless next to the powerful SandWing. 

The poison barb plummeted--

\--and Qibli scrambled away from the mirror so fast he almost slid face-first into the mud. He didn’t stop even after the image had vanished like all the others--he was getting as far away as he could. 

He stopped once he reached a tree trunk at the edge of the clearing, a spot just behind Winter and Turtle. Noticing everyone staring at him, Qibli just shook his head.

“I can’t watch that,” he said. “Not even if I know it’s fake, I can’t watch it.”

“Well,” Kinkajou said as Moon hovered near Qibli’s talons, debating whether to cover them with her own. “I’m pretty sure we know what the mirror’s doing now.”

Turtle did, too, but he’d rather get a second opinion--if he was wrong it would just be embarrassing. “What?”

“Last time it showed us our memories, I think this time it showed us stuff we’re afraid of.” Kinkajou’s eyes got huge. “Oh my gosh, what if those were like our worst fears or something? Actually, scratch that. I’m pretty sure I have worse fears than… being trapped in the Night Kingdom again… with all my friends dead… actually, it might be our worst fears after all.” 

Then Turtle’s worst fear was someone--or maybe just his mother--finding out that he was an animus? That seemed… well, odd. Surely there was something he feared more, like the end of Jade Mountain Academy, being blamed for the death of family members, an apocalypse of dragons rising from the dead and sucking out every drop of the sea--or something more relevant and likely to happen, like failing at a responsibility someone gave him, or losing all his friends, or… yeah, dragons finding out his animus power was probably up there. 

Winter made that “hmph” noise that was always accompanied by an upward toss of his head so he was looking down his snout at everyone else. Turtle wasn’t sure why he did it--maybe he had sinus problems or something. 

“I don’t believe those could have been our worst fears,” Winter said. “Qibli’s got to have a worse fear than--what was that, dirty houses? Turtle has to have something worse than being yelled at by his mother in… what’s that weird secret SeaWing language called?”

“Aquatic,” Moon supplied.

“And it’s not really secret, it’s just that the rest of you literally can’t speak it.” Maybe Turtle was cheating a little by flashing that sentence in Aquatic, but maybe someone else might have seen it as delightfully ironic. 

“And mine was DEFINITELY not my worst--” Winter was cut off as Qibli delicately reached over and pulled Winter’s head so it was angled normally again, not looking down on the rest of them. Winter shot a withering look at Qibli. “You are… unspeakable words.” 

“Great!” 

Turtle felt like he needed to raise a talon--like he was in Webs’ history class--to get a word in edgewise (he did not! But he felt the urge). “So… should we leave now? Go tell Queen Glory and the teachers and the RainWings and NightWings and probably everybody else?”

The response he got consisted of several of his friends saying “Yes!” and the other several saying “No!” but since it was at the same time, it came out sounding like “Ylloh!”

Then everybody looked at each other suspiciously.

“Of course we have to tell Queen Glory about it,” Kinkajou said. “It’s her rainforest, and besides, what if someone bumps into it by mistake and doesn’t know what it is?”

“Like us, you mean?” Qibli asked. “We still don’t really know what it does, and this time was worse than last time--memories are better than nightmares! Why would anyone want to see those? I think we should forget it exists.”

“That’s irresponsible,” Winter argued. “You’re suggesting we maintain this lie for the rest of our lives? And I’m sure we could come up with a way for it to be useful. It’s animus magic, after all, if it’s used properly--”

“--didn’t you literally just say animus magic couldn’t be trusted?”

“Qibli, you--”

“Guys!” Moon broke in. Everyone stopped to look at her. “I agree that we can’t tell anyone yet… but that’s because we don’t know for sure for sure what it does. I think I should test it first.”

Predictably, this led to another round of arguing.

“Moon, all the rest of us have seen our fears. What makes you think you’ll be any different?” Qibli asked.

Kinkajou’s eyes were round with worry, her scales muting to a dusky shade of cerulean. “I don’t want you to see a nightmare, Moon.”

“No,” was all Winter said, stated as firmly as an edict from Queen Glacier.

“Don’t you think we’ve spent enough time here?” Turtle pointed out. “They’re going to be worried about us back at the school. I think we should tell someone else about this tree, and then it’s their problem.” That was usually the best solution to everything. If a problem didn’t entirely belong to you, then it wasn’t always your fault when something went wrong.

Not that he thought this would go wrong. He was just observing the effect it was having on all of his friends--they were all shaken from seeing their fears, and now they were all fighting. 

More than usual.

(Actually, not that much more than usual).

It didn’t really matter either way what Turtle thought, or indeed what any of the others thought, because Moon didn’t need any of the rest of them to make up her mind for her. While eighty percent of the Jade Winglet was squabbling, Moon calmly walked over to the tree and planted herself in front of the glassy black mirror.

One by one, the bickering died down as they noticed. But by that point, it was too late: flickers of form and color were shaping themselves out of the edges of the mirror, as indistinct as mist, but slowly coalescing into…

Into…

Turtle shot an uneasy look at Kinkajou, whose expression was probably the same as his own. This wasn’t how it was supposed to work. The mirror was still black, even though Moon was sitting in the same place all the rest of them had. Nothing was happening.

And then it all happened at once.

A line of silver scales seared across the mirror like a flash of lightning, shadows bending and flexing in such a familiar way that Qibli--who must have figured it out first--jolted upright and made as if to race toward the mirror and Moon, and probably would have if Winter hadn’t blocked him.

And then Turtle got it too. They weren’t looking at a black mirror. They were looking at the black-as-pitch scales of the most colossal NightWing in Pyrrhia.

Whether the NightWing in the mirror really was that big or if it was a close-up, Turtle didn’t know, but his rational brain folded as the dragon unfurled his wings, revealing the starry-scaled pattern, but ten times the size of Moon’s own.

And then the voice echoed from the depths of the mirror, deep and cavernous like the mouth of a cave ready to swallow them all whole.

“Thank you for freeing me, little Moonwatcher,” the voice said, the tone holding amusement and triumph and something terrifying all at once. “Now I can finally finish my plan.”

Another movement, and the NightWing’s huge eye shifted so that it peered through the mirror, nearly the size of the entire mirror.

The tree began to shake, or maybe that was just the world around them. Turtle no longer felt like a dragon--more like an ant, or a speck of dust, victim to the whims of this impossible dragon.

Moon looked like she wanted to move away but couldn’t, remaining rooted to the spot as surely as the tree itself.

The shaking intensified, as though the huge NightWing was trapped inside the tree and was clawing his way out.

Turtle had time to think “This may have been a bad idea.”

And then the mirror shattered, thousands of black shards drifting to the ground.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! And thanks for everyone who commented on the first fic wondering about a sequel!


End file.
